Here's how I was interpreting that bit, right or wrong: I assumed that Charlie had to strip some parts of some of those things in order to cure her addiction. I.e. Remove the memories of doing it, her opinion of it, her pleasure from it, etc. While Betsy maliciously focused on removed what she didn't like about Jillian.

Betsy didn't act out of malice, but that hardly absolves her of her role in this. She drank too deeply of Banhammer's Flavor-Aid and did something truly evil in the name of that metaphysical bastard, the Greater Good. She presumably was eaten by zombies and/or dwagons though, so that's about as close to accountable as she'll ever be held. Still, why would she rip out all the stuff Jillian knew about Charlie? The secrets he didn't want spread around. The jester, who drove her to perform as she was Fated. The bugs were all Charlie, they weren't Betsy Murgatroyd. While she was ripping random pages out of Jillian's diary, he was more methodical, but they were both cleaning her out.

To be fair with the side betrayal aspect of Wanda, she didn't think she was selling out her current side by bringing in Stanley. She thought she was going to trap and kill an enemy warlord and get a badass new toy to use while still a part of FAQ

To be fair with the side betrayal aspect of Wanda, she didn't think she was selling out her current side by bringing in Stanley. She thought she was going to trap and kill an enemy warlord and get a badass new toy to use while still a part of FAQ

Then he shows up with a borderline-impossible number of dwagons and it suddenly looks a lot like Fate. Luckily, Jillian's out and about, so that makes the decision pretty easy, because even if Wanda somehow fought Stanley off there'd just be something worse coming behind him. And it'd cost her something dear, just like always.

Edit: Do we wanna get into how Marie is culpable in this, too? She planted the seed in Wanda's mind while knowing that Wanda was Fated to kill Banhammer and destroy Faq, and that she herself was Fated to serve Queen Jillian, which wasn't gonna happen while Banhammer was alive. "You don't fight Fate, you help it!"

Do we wanna get into how Marie is culpable in this, too? She planted the seed in Wanda's mind while knowing that Wanda was Fated to kill Banhammer and destroy Faq, and that she herself was Fated to serve Queen Jillian, which wasn't gonna happen while Banhammer was alive. "You don't fight Fate, you help it!"

That brings up a curious question, since the apparent cause of Marie's Prediction was her initial encounter with Wanda (though we don't know for sure that was the trigger). Certainly Marie didn't attempt to thwart Fate in the same manner Delphi chose...but taking Delphi as a model for evading a Prediction would be futile with a double side of irony.

To be fair with the side betrayal aspect of Wanda, she didn't think she was selling out her current side by bringing in Stanley. She thought she was going to trap and kill an enemy warlord and get a badass new toy to use while still a part of FAQ

Then he shows up with a borderline-impossible number of dwagons and it suddenly looks a lot like Fate. Luckily, Jillian's out and about, so that makes the decision pretty easy, because even if Wanda somehow fought Stanley off there'd just be something worse coming behind him. And it'd cost her something dear, just like always.

Edit: Do we wanna get into how Marie is culpable in this, too? She planted the seed in Wanda's mind while knowing that Wanda was Fated to kill Banhammer and destroy Faq, and that she herself was Fated to serve Queen Jillian, which wasn't gonna happen while Banhammer was alive. "You don't fight Fate, you help it!"

Indeed, Wanda can hardly be blamed for such an appalling stroke of luck.

Yes, Marie's involvement should not be forgotten. Dictums or no, she caused her own prediction. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is revealed that she actively sabotaged Faq's defences.

That brings up a curious question, since the apparent cause of Marie's Prediction was her initial encounter with Wanda (though we don't know for sure that was the trigger). Certainly Marie didn't attempt to thwart Fate in the same manner Delphi chose...but taking Delphi as a model for evading a Prediction would be futile with a double side of irony.

Marie's initial encounter with Wanda is why she convinced Banhammer to pop an heir. She's probably had an eye on the long game for quite some time.

Whispri wrote:

Yes, Marie's involvement should not be forgotten. Dictums or no, she caused her own prediction. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is revealed that she actively sabotaged Faq's defences.

Our global civilization is falling into disarray because we have abandoned the necessity of engaging the critical evaluation of truth claims because it was more 'convenient' to appeal to authoritative declarations of an immutable divide between "fact" and "opinion".

Quote:

evaluation of truth claims

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truth

Woah woah woah. You can't redefine 'fact' as a dirty word that the man uses to divide us, and then go and drop a loaded word like 'truth.' Just what does 'truth' mean in your context, how is it any different than 'fact?'

I'm not saying that "fact" is a dirty word. I'm saying that the recent attempt to redefine it in dichotomous opposition to "opinion" is an Orwellian attempt to eliminate the capacity for critical thought in our society.

Well, what I initially said was that designating some statements "fact" is just an opinion about opinions.

But initially "fact" meant something entirely different.

As for "truth", I mean a concept that is usefully employed in the process of adaptive prediction of outcomes of possible actions. A "truth claim" is the claim that a statement transmits or conveys a concept that may be usefully employed in the process of adaptive prediction of outcomes of possible actions.

OK. So you're saying something like provable/disprovable versus personal preference would be a better way of dividing it. I mean, I wondered what the voice of that video would say about Christmas in July.

Homeopathy is wrong. Opinions presented as fact are not even wrong. And science, while it might turn out to be wrong, is self correcting towards predicting outcomes of actions, which is another way of saying it seeks truth.

So, Joshua David Greene wrote an interesting thesis on the subject of objective vs. subjective morality, somewhat eccentrically titled "The terrible, horrible, no good very bad truth about morality..... And what to do about it". If you have any interest in the subject I highly recommend it.

The basic premise of the paper is that when we speak about morality people actually tend to have 2 different opposing views of what the concept of morality means, which he labels morality1 and morality2.

Morality1 is basically a Kantian view of morality, where lying or some other immoral action is wrong simply because It. Is. Wrong. Immoral actions in this case are somewhat like universal constants.

Morality2 is a subjective view, where the morality of your actions are determined by both intention and consequence.

The thing about morality1 is that it is basically linguistic nonsense. Why is lying wrong? Because it is wrong. What makes it wrong? The "fact" that it is an immoral action. Immoral actions are by definition wrong.

You see the problem with the above statement? It is a circular definition. Linguistic nonsense. Something that can never, and will never, be adequately explained.

So, it is a lot more useful to think about morality along the lines of morality2. Why is lying wrong? Well... Maybe it isn't always wrong. Why did you lie? Were you lying for personal gain, or did you do it to protect another? That makes a big difference. If, for example, you lie to your friend who wants to give you money, saying that you have enough when you really don't, it is hard to make the argument that your actions were morally wrong.

Sounds like 2 is the actual algorithm and 1 is a pre-computed lookup table. Caching makes a lot of sense when particular special cases of a broader problem come up frequently and requires a quick response, or when hardware limitations are likely to introduce errors, or when running the full calculation every time would create a security flaw. "Lying is always wrong" is a lot less vulnerable to Turnamancy than "Lying is usually wrong, for the following reasons."

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